Thursday, April 16, 2009

Thank you all for your wishes on our anniversary. It really felt good to see your warm wishes. We had a very nice day. We visited Lupu Bridge, which is the world largest arch bridge. For more info you can check here. We climbed up all through the arch bridge and got a panoramic view of Shanghai. It was a wonderful day which ended with a nice dinner at the Revolving Restaurant in the Oriental T.V Tower (Pearl tower). Will post few pics in my next post.

Coming to the today's post Bibbo is "Tender cashewnut" in Konkani. Any dish made out of this is considered royal. When in season a lot of dishes are made out of this. It is even thoroughly sun dried and preserved to enjoy all through the year. At home, one of the more popular item at breakfast was Poori and bibbe upkari. I know its a strange combination but we love it a lot. Festive meal usually includes some dish made out of bibbo. I made this for Ugadi this year.

Here is what's needed:

2 cups Tender Cashews

1/2 boiled Potato

1 cup grated Coconut

1 tbsp Asafoetida water

6-7 Red chillies

a small gooseberry sized Tamarind

Salt to taste

Coconut oil to drizzle

Procedure:

1) Soak the tender cashews in water previous night and remove its skin off. Since I used dried tender cashews I pressure cooked it with cubed potato's for 2 whistles. If using fresh you can omit this step and boil it with little water on stove top until soft.

2) Fry the red chillies in little oil until crisp. Take care not to burn it.

3) Make a masala by grinding grated coconut, tamarind, red chillies and salt. Add little water to make it into smooth paste. Just before taking out the masala add the asafoetida and give it a quick grind. I use the gum variety of it so add it in the final step of grinding. You can also dilute with water and add in to the prepared masala.

4) Add the masala to the cooked cashew and potato. Add water to bring it to desired consistency. Give it a rolling boil. Adjust salt. The mixture should have a nice aroma of asafoetida. Drizzle few drops of coconut oil and serve hot with plain white rice and papad.

Friday, April 10, 2009

This post is dedicated to my hubby who is my best friend and my soul mate. He is the person behind this blog and also the photgrabber ;). When I was looking out for nice quotes I landed up here and found this very nice quote

"Love brought you together

As husband and wife

And gave each of you

A best friend for life"

Happy wedding anniversary dear.. May we share many more years of joy together.

Will update the post with my hubby's fav sweet "Kesribhath" . For now the picture will do :D

Update: Thank you all for your wishes. Here is the recipe as promised. Kesribhath in Mangalore is made out of rice and not with semolina.

Friday, April 3, 2009

I first tasted Dill leaves in my hubby's aunt's house. She had added it to normal Dal vada along with onions. It tasted great. Though Bangaloreans use dill leaves a lot in cooking it was new for me. My MIL uses dill leaves whenever it is available. One day while just shopping I found a batch of nice green dill leaves which were inviting me to pick them up. I just bought them without having any particular dish in my mind. After coming home, I went through my bookmarks and saw Asha's dill paratha's and decided to go ahead with it. Since I did not have lot of ingredients in hand I altered it as per my availibility of ingredients. To go with the paratha's I made simple bhindi masala.

To make Dill paratha's :

1.5 cups Wheat flour

1/2 cup chopped Dill leaves

1/4 cup Milk

1/2 tbsp Ajwain

1/2 tsp Jeera and Coriander powder

Salt to taste

Procedure:

1) Mix all the ingredients together to form a non sticky dough. Add water if required. Let the dough rest for sometime.

Bhindi's are not usually available here. If we are lucky we get few tender bhindi from the imported section. When ever I buy bhindi I make only my tried and tested recipe so as to not to fail. This time I decided to make something other than my usual recipe and made this. I just added ingredients as I felt like with no specific recipe in mind and the outcome was really good.

Here is what's needed:

Fresh tender okra -20

2 medium Onion - Sliced

1 medium Tomato - chopped

1/2 tsp jeera

1/2 tsp Cumin and Coriander powder

1 tsp red Chilli powder

1/4 tsp Amchur powder

1/4 tsp Turmeric powder

1 tsp Garam masala

Salt to taste

Oil 1 tbsp

Procedure:

1) Wash and pat dry the okra. Slice the okra into long pieces.

2) Heat oil and shallow fry the okra until brownish and crisp. Keep it aside. This prevents the end result from turning into gooey mixture.

3) In the same pan heat 1 tsp oil. Add cumin seeds when they splutter add in the onions. Fry until they turn gloden brown. Add in tomato's and cook until mushy.

4) Add in all the powders and stir for a minute before adding the fried bhindi. Saute well until masala is uniformly distributed.